


time is all relative

by lagatos



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Korrasami Week, Road Trip, Time Traveler AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2341154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagatos/pseuds/lagatos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time traveler!Korra crashes into the past and finds herself on a road trip home with Asami. For the korrasami week prompt "road trip."</p>
            </blockquote>





	time is all relative

**Author's Note:**

> I love questionable scifi aus and I love korrasami. The rest is history.

The Night Before: static electricity

 

Asami had been driving down the highway when it happened, one eye on the road as she fiddled with the radio stations. News stations hadn’t been sure what to call it—freak lightning? A meteor? Explosion? For days afterward, articles had popped up in the newspaper claiming aliens or government experiments, but they all started the same way. A flash of blinding light over Republic City and a three minute loss of power city-wide.

            _What the heck was that?_

            Asami slammed on the brakes, bringing her hands up to shield her eyes. In the moments that followed she could feel her heart pulsing in her ears, the forest around her a black wall after the sudden explosion of light. She blinked spots from her eyes, opening the car door to get a look around. The highway was an empty stretch around her, abandoned this far up into the mountains. A plume of smoke rose over the tree tops and a loud voice shouting a colorful stream of expletives followed suit. Asami grit her teeth, wavering for a few seconds before heading into the line of trees.

            She didn’t have to go far to find…whatever it was she’d stumbled upon. The air tasted like electricity and stray pieces of Asami’s hair stood on end as the trees parted around her, the forest clear cut around a small crater carved into the earth. A girl sat doubled over in the clearing, back to her as she continued to mutter a stream of curse words.

            “Hello?”

            The girl started, straightening her back before turning around with a grin on her face.

            “Hello!”

            “Um…”

Asami crept closer, standing over the lip of the crater, shielding her face from the steam. The girl watched her eagerly, her face expectant. When it became clear Asami wasn’t moving from the edge of the crater her smile faltered, her head turning to take in the scenery before she took a deep breath, letting out a loud, quick _fuck!_

“I did it again, didn’t I? Last month I went all the way back to before hoverboards, God. Prehistoric, right? Well, I guess you might not know.” The girl angled her body towards Asami, paying careful attention to her ankle. “What year is it?”

“Uh.” Asami took one step forward, her feet sliding down the shallow crater. This girl’s accent was almost incomprehensible—she must have misheard. “Year?”

“Yeah. I’m still new at this. I mean, Mako _said_ to wait for my license, but…” The girl rolled her eyes. “Hands on learning is still fun.”

“I’m sorry.” Asami sucked in her bottom lip, trying to take in the crater, the steam, the weird accent, the _girl_. “Um… _what?”_

“I crashed my time traveler, do you think you could help me out?”

Asami’s eyebrows shot so far up her forehead she was sure they’d fly off.

 

 

 

“Ah, sorry.” The girl stopped for a moment, her weight pressing down on Asami’s shoulder as she readjusted her shoe. “Thanks for helping me out of here. I think I twisted my ankle _again_ ….I’m not so good at the landing part of this yet…”

She looked up to find Asami staring down at her and smiled, her teeth glowing in the moonlight. “2014, huh? That’s crazy! I’ve never been this far back before.”

“Yeah.” Asami pulled the girl’s arm farther over her shoulder, hitching up her weight. “This must be weird for you.”

“It is!” The girl flailed in her arms, completely missing the sarcasm in her voice. “Do you live in these woods? Oh.” The pressure alleviated from Asami’s shoulder for a second and she looked over to find the girl staring up at her, her eyes wide. “You have electricity, right? I kind of need that to get home. It would take me _ages_ to whip up my own converter…”

“No, we have electricity.” The pressure returned as the girl heaved a sigh and Asami nearly doubled over, dragged down by her relieved weight. “My car’s just over here.”

“Car?”

Her accent dragged the word out, adding extra syllables. _Caaa-uh?_

“Yeah, car.” Asami closed her eyes for a second, trying to comprehend the night she was having. “Four wheels, drives on the road?”

The girl gave her a blank look.

“What do you use to get around, then?”

“My hovorboard, mostly. It took me ages to save up for it.” She stood up taller, putting her weight on her left foot and shooting Asami a proud look. “I named her and everything. You’d love Naga. I should give you a ride.”

“Yeah…”

They reached the road, Asami tugging the girl over to the passenger door as she gaped openly.

“It runs on _wheels?_ ” She crouched down, inspecting the tires. “How does it go? Is it powered by electricity? My hovorboard works on magnetics, is there metal in this black pavement?”

Asami opened the passenger door, helping the girl into her seat. “It runs on gasoline. I built it myself, actually.”

“Really?” The girls eyebrows shot up and she gave Asami an appreciative once over.

“Yeah.” Asami slid into the driver’s seat, self-conscious of the girl’s stare. “My dad helped me put it together.”

“Wow.”

Asami started the engine, smiling slightly as the girl’s jaw dropped. “Have you heard of seatbelts?”

 

 

 

It was quiet for a while, the sound of wind rushing through the open windows covering up the silence in the car. The girl kept putting her hand on the dashboard and checking her bracelet for something, tiny lights beeping in a row when she fiddled with it.

Asami glanced over, catching the girl absorbed in staring out the window. “So… What year are you from?”

“8458,” she said, pulling her eyes away from the trees on either side of them. “I’m Korra, by the way. Nice to meet you.” She stuck out her pinky and Asami looked at it quizzically.

“Go ahead,” Korra prompted, wiggling her pinky in the air. “Let’s link pinkies.”

Asami glanced at her for a moment before sticking out her own, Korra locking them together. “We usually just shake hands.”

“Weird.”

“I’m Asami, by the way.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

Asami kept looking out the windshield, at the white lines in front of them. “So you’re definitely from the future?”

Korra pulled a face. “No, I’ve never been to the future. You’re just from the past.”

“Oh.” Asami nodded, keeping her eyes on the road. “Logical.”

“Shut up.” She punched Asami on the arm, _hard_ , and Asami swerved, tires screeching on the pavement.

“Sorry!” Korra laughed, not sounding sorry at all. Asami snuck a glance at her as she smiled widely, her eyes glowing with excitement. Geez.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“If you’re from the future…Sorry. If I’m from the _past_ , why haven’t I heard of more people time traveling before now?”

Korra fidgeted in her seat, tugging at her seatbelt.

Asami glanced in the rearview mirror before switching lanes. _Okay_.

“Uh, is that classified information or…? Sorry, I don’t really know about…this.”

“Well…”

She fiddled with her seatbelt again, her accent drawing out the word. _Waaaaaale…_

“Technically, I’m not really supposed to be doing this on my own,” the girl muttered, facing the window.

“Oh?” Asami raised her eyebrows, looking back at the road. So the universe sent her a joyrider straight from some sci-fi movie her dad liked to watch. Alright.

“Yeah. They have to pick you at birth. Plant these chips in your brain? They call us Avatars. And you get trained when you get older. And you can get your license to use them. After like a million tests and the most boring ethics course.” Korra rolled her eyes, pulling at her seatbelt. “But I just wanted to try it out, I swear! I was only trying for a couple years back. I thought it would be funny to see my friends as kids…I think I went back a few years too early.”

Asami snorted “No kidding.”

She switched to the far lane, taking the exit for the rest area. Korra looked up as the car started to decelerate, taking in the faded, peeling building. “Do you live here?”

“God no.” She parked the car, unbuckling her seatbelt as she flashed Korra a smile. “I live a few hours away. We’re just making a pit stop.”

“A pit stop?”

“There’s not nearly enough caffeine in my system to deal with this situation.”

 

 

Roadside Adventures: cheetos make an excellent snack

 

“What are those?”

“Twinkies.”

“What are these?”

“Cheetos.”

Korra wrinkled her nose, holding the bag up to her face. “It looks very…orange.”

Asami sighed, blowing on her steaming cup of coffee. “It’s good. Trust me.”

Korra blinked, holding the bag up to her bracelet, passing the barcode across the metal as Asami looked on amusedly.

“This isn’t workin—ohhhhhhhh—”

Asami quickly clapped her palm against Korra’s mouth, looking around to catch the stares of a few curious customers. “Korra, people will notice.”

 “I forgot you had to use those papers you showed me to buy things. Doesn’t that get annoying carrying that around?” Korra asked, talking around Asami’s fingers.

Asami quickly pulled her hand away, wiping it on her pants as she looked around. “Your accent is kind of…foreign. Maybe you should let me do the talking?”

“Accent?”

Korra looked up at her, puzzled, before reaching behind her ear. Lights started blinking to life from beneath her hair and Asami stared, open-mouthed, before she pushed her back farther into the store, glancing around before shoving them both inside the dingy bathroom.

“Korra, I thought you said people weren’t supposed to find out you were here.”

 “Relax. They would never guess. You guys are kind of primitive.”

Asami rolled her eyes, turning to look at herself in the mirror. “You _hair_ is lighting up. Are you part robot?”

Korra scoffed, reaching behind her ear again. “That’s totally illegal. How does my voice sound now?”

Asami paused, watching Korra’s smirk widen in the mirror. “How did you do that?” Her accent had completely faded—she sounded just like…Asami.

Korra shrugged. “Universal translator. I guess the settings got messed up when I crash landed.” She pointed to behind her ear, and Asami could just make out a few buttons nestled against the shell of her ear. “They’re supposed to pick up the first language I encounter when I land.”

“…Oh.”

Asami stared at her reflection in the mirror, hardly believing the complete oddity standing under the flickering, fluorescent lights beside her.

 

 

 

“Hey, Korra?”

“Hmm?”

The car had grown silent after an hour, Korra looking absentmindedly out the window after exhausting her supply of questions about how the economy worked. She’d been mystified about the concept of tangible money, and outright angry about the job market. _But who feeds you if you can’t find a job? Do you starve?_ Asami had answered her questions patiently, amazed at how passionately Korra plowed through her arguments.

“How are you going to get home?”

Korra shifted in her seat, the glowing red numbers of the dashboard lighting up her face in the darkness. “I can fix my time traveler.” She pulled up her foot, tapping on a row of dented metal plates embedded into her ankle. “I just need the right parts.”

“Do you think you’ll find them at my car shop?”

“Probably.”

Asami yawned, watching the white lines blur onto the road in front of her. “We might have to stop along the road if it gets too late. Is anyone going to miss you if we’re a day late?”

“Don’t worry.” Korra gave her a soft smile, the headlights of another car illuminating her features for a brief moment before plunging her face back into shadows. “Time is all relative.”

 

 

 

Roadside Adventures, Part II: slumber party

 

Asami put the car in park, her ears ringing in the sudden absence of sound. Korra lay slumped against the window, the orange glow of the rest area street lamps washing over her dark skin. Her bracelet pulsed a line of red lights and she shifted in her seat, snoring slightly. Asami watched her for a moment in the silence, taking in the soft slope of her nose, the defined lines of her arms.

“Korra.”

She shook her shoulder lightly and Korra mumbled something against the window, wiggling farther down into her seat.

“Korra, do you want to wash up for the night?”

“’re we sleepin’ in there?” Korra blinked up at Asami, wiping the sleep from her eyes as she propped herself up.

“No, we’re going to have to sleep in the car. I’m sorry, there aren’t any hotels on the way back to the city.”

Korra rubbed at her nose, smiling slightly in the dim lights of the rest area. Sleep had smoothed out her rough edges, her excited nature toned down to soft gratitude. “This is great.” She shuffled out of the car, following Asami as she led them to the empty building, taking extra care of her ankle.

 

 

 

Asami left the bathroom to find Korra huddled on the hood of her car, fingers curled around a steaming paper cup.

“Do they have hot chocolate where you’re from?”

“Of course.” Korra blew on her cup, watching the steam curl up. Asami sat next to her, shivering in the cold of the night. They were quiet for a while, Korra sipping her drink while Asami watched her breath fog above her.

“Are all places like this in 2014?”

Asami turned to see Korra looking up at the sky, taking in the stars above them.

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is just so…open.” Korra shifted on the hood of the car, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I’ve never seen the stars look so close. And the forest is all around us.”

“I guess it is nice this far up in the mountains.” Asami glanced at Korra’s profile, how her jaw hung open, just a little bit, as she took in the sky above them. “You’ve never been camping before?”

“Camping?”

Korra turned to catch Asami’s eyes, her hand fiddling with the buttons behind her ear as if she might translate the word.

“Camping. My dad used to take me up in the mountains all the time. We’d take sleeping bags, cook over a fire. Sleep under all the stars that show up outside of the city.”

“Camping.” Korra leaned back on the hood of the car, letting her head rest against the windshield. “That sounds nice. We’re not allowed in the forests without a permit.”

Asami laid down beside Korra, taking the stars in. She couldn’t imagine a life without the mountains, always here in case she needed an escape from the city below them. The crickets chirped around them as Asami pointed out a few constellations, her voice soft in the vastness of the night, her breath curling above them. Her eyelids drooped as they lay there, the cold metal of the car hood pressed against Asami’s skin keeping her from nodding off completely.

Korra turned to her after a while, a grin on her face. “You took me on my first camping trip.”

Asami laughed at the childlike excitement in Korra’s eyes, letting her head rest against the cold of the car. Korra drew her knees up between them, watching Asami’s expression in fascination.

“What is it?” She turned on her side, mimicking Korra’s pose, their knees brushing each other’s as she settled in. Korra shrugged, watching her with wide, blue eyes.

“It’s cold.”

Korra wrapped her arms around her knees. “Maybe we should go back in the car?”

Asami hummed in agreement, letting her eyes drift closed. “In a minute.”

The last thing Asami remembered before drifting off was Korra’s bracelet, a row of green lights blinking in the night.

 

 

 The Morning After: my circulation totally cockblocked me

 

Something shifted under Asami’s head and she stirred, coming to consciousness as cold metal pressed gently against her cheek. She blinked her eyes open, burrowing into the warmth beside her as the cold mountain air greeted her.

“Sorry.”

Asami started as the person lying beside her whispered, the soft exhale tickling her face.

“My arm fell asleep and I had to move it. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Asami pushed herself up against the hood of her car, rubbing her eyes as she looked around. They were still the only car parked in the lot, the grey of morning just breaking over the mountains.

“We fell asleep.”

Korra laughed beside her, her legs still pressed against Asami in the chill of the morning. “We did. Is that how you camp?”

Asami stretched, trying to work out the kinks from her back after sleeping on the hard metal all night. “Not exactly.”

 

 

 

“Asami?”

“Hmm?”

Korra had been surfing through the radio stations, pausing on a station for a moment before turning to the next, utterly entranced by the news reports and commercials. Asami hadn’t been paying much attention, not noticing when Korra left it playing on an acoustic station.

“Thank you. For taking me back to your city.” She looked out at the trees whizzing past, a green blur on either side of them. “I have no idea how long it would’ve taken me to walk out of here with a broken time traveler.”

“It’s not a problem.” Asami wasn’t surprised when her words felt genuine. The situation was strange, definitely, but her impromptu road trip with Korra had been amazing, to say the least. For a stranger from the _future_. “I had fun camping.”

She grinned, suddenly switching lanes. Asami glanced at Korra, something stirring in her stomach as the same, excited spark in Asami’s expression reflected in Korra’s eyes. “We should see one more thing before we head back to the city, though.”

 

 

 

Roadside Adventures, Part III: gay

 

“What is it?”

“Come on, it’s not much farther!”

Asami pulled Korra up over the rocks, taking care to watch for the metal plates on her ankle. Korra had told her she’d need to fix whatever was under them to head home. Somehow.

Korra scrambled over the rocks on her hands and knees, popping up to run ahead of her. They climbed the last boulder over the lip of the cliff, the sounds of the forest around them finally waking up from their slumber. The mist from the morning had just started to burn off, drifting over the green of the pines in the valley as the world opened up beneath them.

Korra gasped, her mouth popping open as she took in the view below them. Asami had loved coming here as a kid—the trail wasn’t too far from the city, but it was still in the mountains, high enough to give them a three sixty view of the valley below them, Republic City nestled between two hills and the bay.

Korra turned to her for a moment, her face lit up, before taking tiny steps towards the edge of the cliff, arms thrown wide open as she took in the sight around them. Asami smiled, waking forward to join her. She might have seen pictures or videos, or whatever people looked at that far in the future, but nothing felt quite the same as standing on top of the world, stomachs turning as you looked below you at the land in miniature.

Korra’s fingers curled loosely around Asami’s and Asami turned to smile at her, lacing their fingers together.

“This is amazing.”

Korra’s face still shone bright with exhilaration as she stood on her toes, closing the distance between them. Her lips felt hot against Asami’s, excitement and power rippling between them as Korra pressed hard against her. Asami pulled away, pressing the tips of her fingers to her lips, still feeling the heat underneath them. She curled her fingers around Korra’s hips, energy buzzing under her fingertips as Korra pressed hard and fast against her, taking her breath away quickly, coming at her with the same energy she’d barreled through time with.

 

 

 Epilogue: short and sweet

 

“I think I’ve got it!”

Asami looked up from the engine she had been working on, grease smearing her cheeks as she wiped sweat from her face.

“Your time traveler?”

“Yes!” Korra jumped into Asami’s arms, wrapping her hands tight against her neck, crushing her with a kiss so hard it could bruise. “You’ll still take me to the national park when I come back, right?”

“Of course.” Asami gently pulled Korra’s hands loose from around her neck, holding her chin softly as she placed a small kiss to the side of her lips. “I said I would take you camping for real. Are you still going to work on getting your real license?”

Korra grumbled against her lips, ducking her head to bury her nose in Asami’s neck. “Yeah, yeah.”

“How soon can you come back?”

“Don’t worry.” Korra smiled, rubbing a smattering of grease from Asami’s cheek with her thumb. “Time is all relative.”

**Author's Note:**

> I guess they're together for all time hey hey hey


End file.
